Pumping vast amounts of fluids underground may have set off swarm of tremors

By Meghan Rosen, 14:03 PM July 3, 2014

Pumping wastewater underground may rock Oklahoma. Vast quantities of water left over from oil and gas extraction and then injected into disposal wells may have set off a surge of earthquakes that has shaken the state since 2008.

And disposal wells don’t just trigger quakes nearby. Tremors can rattle the ground up to 35 kilometers away — much farther than scientists had previously thought, researchers report July 3 in Science.

The new study is the most definitive to link Oklahoma’s rocketing ear...